Bellerose woman helps sick kids with superhero cape campaign

Evgenia Soldatos is raising money to make handmade superhero capes for St. Mary’s Hospital for Children.

A Bellerose law student is crusading to turn sick kids into superheroes, one cape at a time.

Evgenia Soldatos, 23, has started a campaign to give handmade superhero capes to the nearly 100 patients at St. Mary’s Hospital for Children.

“I hope it’ll bring them a sense of empowerment,” Soldatos said. “They’ll have a superhero mentality that they’re indestructible.”

St. Mary’s serves special needs, critically ill and injured children who battle complex and life-threatening medical conditions.

“They can fight whatever comes their way,” said Soldatos. “They’re going to feel like they have a shield around them, like nothing can hurt them at all.”

The campaign, called “Capes for Kidz,” has raised $500 so far. However, Soldatos said she needs $5,000 to complete her mission.

It was inspired by Seattle mom Robyn Rosenberger, who sews superhero capes for children living with disabilities or serious illnesses, and a rambunctious boy called Jayden.

Soldatos said Jayden lit up St. Mary’s by “zooming around the lobby” every day in his red Spider-Man costume up until he passed away about five years ago.

“I felt like that was what was keeping him going,” said Soldatos, a former St. Mary’s volunteer and receptionist. “That’s what brought him happiness in the short life he had. I know he is now the best-dressed angel in heaven.”

Jayden would get bothered, Soldatos said, when people asked him why he was wearing the costume.
He would say he was there to save the world, she said.

“These kids don’t know they’re sick,” Soldatos said. “I hope this is just going to make them feel that way even more. For the most part, I want happiness to help them fight the disease.”